The Midnight Subway
by turntable-bayou
Summary: AU - Slice of Life. The Midnight Subway is how the city has called it, where the tickets are much cheaper than a normal ride, but it only runs from 6pm to 3am, the darkest hours of the day. One blond, a boy certainly no older than twenty, scratches his messy hair, clear blue eyes flicking insistently around the crowd: the train was packed yet again.


_**A/N:** Comments and reviews are appreciated as always~! Thanks for reading!_

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_"I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway."_

_- Toni Morrison_

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The subway is packed again. One blond, a boy certainly no older than twenty, scratches his messy hair, clear blue eyes flicking insistently around the crowd, taking notes of every minimal smile, every lean of hips, jerk of legs, curses, sweaty shirts, push. Nothing escapes his narrowed eyes, for he's in a dangerous place - but isn't the whole town? His posture is a relaxed one, however, back pressed against the cold metal bar, one of the many down the car for people to hold onto. The train has a fixed route, he knows the stations by heart already, but once in a while the driver gets distracted and tugs the brake far too quickly for any of the passenger's taste. Well, the boy supposes he can't complain; if he wanted comfort, he should just gather enough money and buy himself a car or a bike. He walks alone for the most part, a bike would be enough, only it isn't, because instead, he's jammed like a fish in a can among a bunch of other people. Dark skinned women from the desert, lean men who smell like salty water and are said to be able to swim like fish, men who have such harsh features they might as well be rocks. They're all in the same mess of a city.

One woman approaches him, just as the siren goes off and the doors close. From then on, the boy counts precisely five seconds until the train is moving full speed, crossing the town from down below like a beast that no one sees. He figures it doesn't matter; no one cares for the beast or what it carries, it's all under the city's gaze, hidden as it should be. The blond wants to laugh, because, in the end, once they crawl out of the underground and into the city night with the blinding outdoor lights, they'll still be invisible. Lonely people caught in their own little worlds, such as him. He chuckles instead, fixes his green sweatshirt and gives enough space for the woman to sit down. What is her story, or why she's taking the subway with him and all the dozen other workers leaving the town, he doesn't know. Perhaps she's lost a son, perhaps she's never been married... He can tell, so he imagines, and that is enough to spend his time for the moment.

A harsh stop that almost sends him flying brings the boy back to reality. Perhaps the driver is having a hard day, but the young man can't bring himself to worry much for a man he's never seen before. He's halfway home, just four more stations to pass, then, he'll be able to relax and prepare for another day. No one looks his way, or bother to ask for his name, so he doesn't say a word. Most of his life follows the pattern, like clockwork; wake up, shower, feed his dog Epona, subway, work, subway, walk, home, shower, sleep. There's little comfort in knowing how exactly each day of his week will end, but the blond guesses it is, perhaps, for the best. The strange, underground train goes on, full speed with only the sounds of metal against metal, a small buzz to lull him, hinting that they're indeed moving. It has all felt like a lie to him ever since he's left Skyloft, but rare are the moments he truly stops to think about it - it wouldn't change his reality, he wouldn't suddenly have his parents back again, and it certainly wouldn't help him grow roots in the Capitol. His roots belonged in Ordon, the first place where he had ever truly felt like he belonged, but if he was a tree, the war was a huge fire that crashed all his hopes.

Right now, he's a mere lawyer, a businessman for a corporation that isn't his family, a tree without roots. And he's alright with it, because the young man isn't aiming too high, he doesn't plan on being any Deku Tree like the legends whisper so. He's alright being a bush, mixed in the crowd - he's even wearing green, although he's one of the few who have the courage to do so. Green used to be worn by the Forest People, dead so long ago the oldest books in the oldest libraries can't even precise. The blond doesn't find the fact relevant, perhaps he doesn't even know - we can't know for sure, our time is the present. The siren goes off again, like the change of seasons, and the lawyer, now far away from the woman who crossed his path, manages to find an empty seat. He doesn't take it, instead he offers it to an older gentleman in a well-tailored suit. The gentleman vaguely wonders how many men much like the youth in front of him still are out there, capable of altruistic gestures in this madness of a town where the only rule is to swallow everything in your way, and kill anything that might kill you.

The sirens go off a couple of times more, counting precisely three stations until the train has reached the end of the line for him. It isn't the farthest this line goes, but he's never ventured beyond, so he's satisfied enough to call it the end. He steps out of the train, or rather, is dragged out by the minimal crowd who also calls it the end. The train goes on for yet another five more stations, but only five brave souls dare stay. The youth doesn't care about them for the simple fact he doesn't know them. Had it been Ordon, perhaps he'd talk to and care about the bored man with headphones on, or the woman who had previously passed by him - there she is, staying. He goes on, down the platform and away from the rails. Before they make it outside, all passengers have to pass through a long hall, followed by a flight of stairs that, finally, connect the underground to the city. The station we, and the lawyer, are at is a central one in the town of Hyrule. It's a big terminal that connects many places, and the many floors down below have train that, it is said, can take you even to Gerudo Valley. Rumours, of course, and the green-clad boy has never verified such information, so we don't know.

Our focus right now is his mess of blond hair, a yellow dot in the mass that doesn't rest, although it's midnight. The car we just took, this route only works from 6pm to 3am, the darkest hours of the day. The Midnight Subway is how the city has called it, and the tickets are much cheaper than a normal ride - out of courtesy, from the King maybe? - so it's granted that every car will be rightfully packed. Doesn't matter, back to the hall where the blond walks. It's a large hall, with tall and looming walls that make the crowd look very small and minimal, ants making their way over the dirt. Our laywer looks up, far ahead at the end of the hall and there's the familiar painting of the Three Goddesses and their Hero. Both him and the Hero are oddly alike, he notices, but that's nothing he's ever stopped to pay close attention to before. Today is a different day, however, and the young man detaches himself from the mass, not making his way to the exit but, instead, to the painting. He's never cared about old legends of dead heroes, yet it's still 00h47 and he has plenty of time before the subway closes, precisely at 3h00.

Looking up, our blond's bright blue eyes clash against the Hero's dark, navy-blue irises, and his first instinct is to look away, so is ours. The Hero's eyes are intense, and very fierce, as they were painted to make it seem he was staring down judgmentally at anyone who dared meet his eyes. A sigil of justice carefully carved by the Three Sisters to save their lands from any evil. The Hero always wears green, Farore's colours, and has blue eyes, as Nayru herself. Din makes herself shown in the blood on his sword, as one doesn't grow to be a hero if there's not an equally powerful villain to defeat - or so every Hylian is taught from a very young age. The Hero, however, doesn't have a name. He may have had, one day, when he was but a mere man instead of a legend, but such information is lost to time. The blond, however, very small in comparison to any of the entities painted right before him, has a name. He knows his name is Link.

And for the tiniest moment, in a very childish manner, Link entertains himself with the silly thought of the Hero's long lost name being Link, as his own. Every man in Hyrule would love to share their name with the Hero, but it's surreal to imagine such a legend would have such a common name as Link. He laughs, shaking his head and taking a step back to properly admire the Hero. Rumour has it that the man married the princess of his time, and together they ruled and guided the kingdom into a prosperous era. Link keeps a low profile and while he may help one or two lost souls on his way home, in the end all he has is an empty bed to return home to. He doesn't want to paint himself as a victim, far from it, but the lawyer, the man who isn't a hero, can't help but envy the one who has actually made a name for himself. Perhaps he did have parents, and he was raised in a warm house with pumpkin soup for supper. Link has no idea, the legends never tell the Hero was an orphan very much like him. After all, what is a Hero? Link knows the man in the painting is one: he looks like one, with a strong facade, the blood coating sacred steel while the very three goddesses pose behind his back as his own Guardian Faeries. He holds no sign of dark bangs under his eyes, lack of sleep because he takes a subway at midnight. That is Link, he doesn't think of himself so highly as to deserve a painting of himself in one of the busiest train stations of the Capitol.

Link looks down at his own clothes, and sighs a bit. His worn-out jeans and oversized green sweatshirt couldn't be more average (perhaps not the green coat, it was very rare to see green-clad blondes nowadays). Slung over his shoulder, not a sword-sheath, but his own leather backpack, filled to the brim with paperwork, cases and cases stuffed inside. He was a meek lawyer, working for a company who cared as much for him as he cared back for it, and even if he wanted to make a name for himself, he is no Deku Tree, he's no Hero. A flinch, and although we can't tell what is going on, we hear Link curse, and see him massage his tense shoulder. He had been a soldier before being a lawyer, and the bullet wound hurts from time to time, as if to remind him of the war he had been dragged into, a war that wasn't his. There had been a minimal announcement on the news, thanking the nameless soldiers for their participation in the war, from the King himself. However, Link was in the shower, he didn't hear it, he never came to receive his minimal thanks. Instead, he moved, and the city's blinding lights welcomed him much like flash grenades.

Slowly, Link turns back from the painting. The bloodshed might be glorious in legends, but the blood and war he's seen isn't touching, or convincing, because things in reality aren't as black and white. Vaguely, he wonders how the Hero managed to deal with so much killing, but perhaps dealing with a known evil force had been way easier than shooting at a few Gerudos. If not, he was clearly unfit to be a hero, he was far too soft, in his own way... He wouldn't be able to deal the final blow. Instead, Link knows he'd feel bad for killing anything, even the most insignificant beings. He could help people, however, and do some minimal good in exchange of some minimal gratitude. In the end, it was for naught but a thankless job. Perhaps this is what being a hero is, Link thinks bemusedly, and doing minimal good while not being able to deal with death is secretly a job requirement.

He doesn't think much however, just vaguely laughing to himself that, if he was honestly a Hero - and only if - he certainly wouldn't still be in a mass of dozen other anonymous, tired from work and lack of sleep, dying to go home, yet another of the many nightly passengers of The Midnight Subway. Still, the blonde smiles one last time at the Hero, waves discreetly at the painting and then turns around. Our focus adjusts to follow him, and slowly, we see his steps towards the exit. One last time, the sirens go off and we hear the subway depart for the last time, ending all the night's activities. The lights in the station are turned off, section by section, and soon, only the painting of the Hero is left alight. Our last glance at Link is a focus on his feet, climbing up the stairs while all of the lights carefully turn off right behind him. Yet, we remain by the Hero's side, and once Link is gone, all we see is darkness.

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**-The End-**


End file.
